The Skies Belong to Us: Love and Terror in the Golden Age of Hijacking

A shattered Army veteran and a mischievous party girl, Roger Holder and Cathy Kerkow commandeered Western Airlines Flight 701 as a vague protest against the war. Through a combination of savvy and dumb luck, the couple managed to flee across an ocean with a half-million dollars in ransom, a feat that made them notorious around the globe. Koerner spent four years chronicling this madcap tale, which involves a cast of characters ranging from exiled Black Panthers, to African despots, to French movie stars.

Piano Demon: The Globetrotting, Gin-Soaked, Too-Short Life of Teddy Weatherford, the Chicago Jazzman Who Conquered Asia

At age six, Teddy Weatherford was working in the coal mines of Virginia. By his early 20s he was the toast of Chicago's jazz scene, rivaling Louis Armstrong and wowing Jelly Roll Morton with his piano talent. But when Weatherford left segregated America for the allures of Shanghai and Bombay, he set out on an adventure he hadn't imagined. The man they called "The Seagull" would become the globetrotting jazz king of Asia in the shadow of World War II, and provide the soundtrack for the last gasp of an empire.